St. John of Beverly, Bishop of York, Who Ordained Saint Bede to the Priesthood

7 May

Born in Harpham (Humberside), Yorkshire, England; died at Beverley,
England, May 7, 721; canonized in 1037; feast of translation, October
25. Saint John trained for the priesthood and monastic life in Kent
under the direction of Saints Adrian and Theodore, but returned to
Yorkshire upon completing his studies to become a monk at Whitby Abbey,
which was then under the rule of Saint Hilda.

John founded a monastery in Humberside, England, on the site of a small
church dedicated to Saint John the Evangelist, where he asked to be
buried. In 687, after the death of Saint Eata, John he was consecrated
bishop of Hexham. He is said to have shown special care for the poor and
the handicapped. Whatever time he could spare from his episcopal duties
he spent in contemplation. At regular seasons, especially during Lent,
he retired to pray in a cell by the church of Saint Michael beyond the
Tyne, near Hexham. He would take with him some poor person, whom he
would serve during his retirement.

He was transferred York as archbishop upon the death of Saint Bosa in
705, and Saint Wilfrid succeeded him at Hexham as part of the final
settlement of the latter's long dispute with the Northumbrian kings. He
continued his practice of periodic retirement for spiritual refreshment.
His chosen retreat was an abbey that he had built at Beverley, then a
forest. Not until
old age had worn him out did he resign his office to Saint Wilfrid the
Younger in order to spend the last four years of his life in the peace
of his beloved abbey at Beverley.

According to the Venerable Bede in Ecclesiastical History, who was
ordained both deacon and priest by John when he was bishop of Hexham,
John of Beverley possessed the gift of healing. He cured a youth of
dumbness, even though the boy had never utter a single word. (The boy
was apparently bald from a scalp disease also.) On the second Sunday of
Lent, John made the sign of the cross upon the youth's tongue, and
loosed it. Bede tells of how the saint patiently taught the boy the
alphabet. He taught him to say "gea," which signifies in Saxon "Yea";
then the letters of the alphabet, and afterwards syllables. Thus the
youth miraculously obtained his speech. Moreover, by the saint's
blessing and the remedies prescribed by a physician whom he employed,
his head was entirely healed, and became covered with hair.

Bede also records that John cured a noblewoman of a pain so grievous
that she had been unable to move for three weeks. Several people who
seemed in immediate danger of death were saved by his prayers. In
addition to his own eye-witness accounts, Bede tells us of cures
witnessed by Abbot Bercthun of Beverley and Abbot Herebald of Tinmouth.

After the saint's death, such miracles continued around his shrine,
which became a famous pilgrimage site. The Bollandist Henschenius
devoted four books to the miracles wrought at the holy bishop's shrine.
So many were drawn there that the magnificent Beverley Minster was
built, which rivals some of England's great cathedral churches. Alcuin
also records miracles worked at John's intercession. For example, King
Athelstan invoked John's intercession for victory against the Scots. In
1307, his relics were translated--the occasion of a vita written by
Folcard. Some of the sweet-smelling relics were discovered in September
1664, when a grave was being dug, in a lead box within a vault of
freestone. These relics had been hidden in the beginning of the reign of
king Edward VI.